The amount of wireless data being transferred is expected to exceed that of wired data, pushing the limits of macro cell deployment. Small cell deployment may be used to help handle this increase in data capacity, while meeting customer quality of service expectations and operators' requirements for cost-effective service delivery.
Small cells generally are low-power wireless access points that operate in a licensed spectrum. Small cells provide improved cellular coverage, capacity and applications for homes and businesses, as well as metropolitan and rural public spaces. Different types of small cells include, generally from smallest size to largest size, femto cells, pico cells, metro cells and micro cells.
With the introduction of small cells into the homogeneous wireless network, the cell density in the network increases significantly which results in higher interference signal levels from neighboring cells. The strong inter-cell interference has a severe negative impact on user equipment (UE) achievable data throughput, especially for UEs at the cell edge.
Advanced receiver algorithms can be employed at the UE baseband to improve its performance by canceling and suppressing inter-cell interference. These advanced receiver algorithms are typically non-linear in nature and require some knowledge of the interfering signal and network coordination.